IT Job Descriptions

IT Job Descriptions

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Disaster Recovery Business Continuity


Disaster Recovery Business Continuity

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Security Manual Template Policies & Procedures

IT Job Descriptions

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IT Salary Survey

IT Salary Survey

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IT Hiring Kit

IT Hiring Kit

The IT Salary Survey draws on data collected throughout the year by extensive interviews,  internet-based survey data, and survey forms completed by businesses throughout the United States and Canada. 

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Email Policy Electronic communication policy

Internet, E Mail and
Electronic Communication Policy

Download Table of Contents

 

This policy is twenty-three (23) page in length, is compliant with all recent legislation (SOX, HIPAA, Patriot Act, and Sensitive information), and covers:

  • Appropriate use of equipment
  • Internet access
  • Electronic Mail
  • Retention of e-mail on personal systems
  • E-mail and business records retention
  • Copyrighted materials
  • Banned activities
  • Ownership of information
  • Security
  • Sarbanes-Oxley
  • Abuse

Included with the policy are forms that can be used to facilitate the implementation of the policy. Included are these ready to use forms:

  • Internet & Electronic Communication Employee Acknowledgement (short form)
  • E-Mail - Employee Acknowledgement (short form)
  • Internet Use Approval Form
  • Internet Access Request Form
  • Security Access Application Form

Download Table of Contents

The WORD template uses the latest CSS style sheet and can easily be modified to conform to the style used in your enterprise policy manual.

 

CSS Style Sheet

Download Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

Latest Policy News


Cloud Process Benefits Defined

The benefits that that come from Cloud Processing and the associated infrastructure transformation include:

  • Improvement in application performance
  • Hardware reduction
  • Reduce system administration overhead
  • Reduce carbon footprint
  • Power savings
  • Savings in software licenses
  • Faster job submissions
  • Downtime avoidance
  • Reduce compliance and ISO 9001 validation time
  • Single path to support
  • Warranty savings

Janco also points to other less tangible advantages that cloud processing achieves, such as: higher employee productivity, better performance across its infrastructure and avoided costs of outages. Additional savings and efficiencies, such as from virtualization, casn be expected as the cloud process continues to expand.

- more info


Firefox releases 4.0 Beta

Mozilla has launched the fourth beta of Firefox 4, adding bookmark and password synchronization, and revamping how people wrestle tabs.

The latest build supports the first attempt at accelerating Firefox 4's page rendering by tapping the graphics processor. The hardware acceleration, available only in Windows Vista and Windows 7, is disabled by default.

Trends in Browser Market Share

Browser Market Share Trends

Firefox 4 Beta 4's most visible addition is "Panorama," a new name for what Mozilla had been calling "Tab Candy." Largely driven by the work of Aza Raskin, creative lead of Firefox, Panorama lets users collect tabs into sets, graphically displays those sets, and when users open a tab, shows only those tabs within the group.

Mozilla, which calls Panorama a tab manager, has argued that it's the next step in the evolution of tabs.

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Windows 7 takes off

Windows 7 is success

Windows 7

A major finding in the report is that Microsoft's new Operating System, Windows 7 has 17.39% of the OS market less than 13 months after its availability.  That is a major factor in Microsoft's improved record earnings.  Janulaitis said, "The last time that an OS was accepted as quickly the market was XP.  Vista's market share has peaked and is in the process of being decommissioned in most enterprises."

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New IT Metrics Program and Benchmark Program

 Most IT Managers understand the importance of collecting, reporting and acting on performance metrics, but few put this knowledge into action in a meaningful way. Our partners at Janco Associates' recommend that all IT organizations develop and maintain a metrics program by focusing on simple metrics that address specific business issues like spending and staffing justification or performance improvement.

Metrics

  

To help you identify and launch a metrics program that is meaningful to your specific business, Info-Tech has assembled the Metrics for the Internet, Information Technology, and Service Management HandiGuide. It is a collection of metric reports and tools designed to get your IT team's metrics program up and running quickly and easily. You will be given simple steps to creating a metrics program including the most important step: How to act on the results and improve IT performance to better serve the business.

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Mainframes and server farms are sources of productivity improvements

In the post-recession environment, the demand and supply mismatch between IT departments and the businesses they serve is growing. Business demands on IT are increasing while IT budgets have been cut.

CIO Productivity KitIT Infrastructure, Strategy, and Charter TemplateThe needs that IT can't address as a supplier, it can address through other means. CIO can be a facilitators connecting the business units to the services they need, whether internally or externally, such as from a cloud or software-as-a-service provider.

IT is becoming more responsive, not because it can do more, but because it can acknowledge and help the business with more of their operationals needs. Productivity levels have improved

The path to value is taking some familiar and some new directions while also running into age-old issues.

Company have saved millions, mostly in cost savings, by putting new applications into a mainframe and on stand-alone servers  environmens. The savings came from the smaller physical footprint, reduced cooling and power needs, and reductions in networking and systems administration work.

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Social networks hinder productivity

Social networks had already surpassed e-mail use among American Internet users. But according to a Nielsen Co. survey, online gaming is now also more popular that e-mail.

CIO Productivity KitIT Infrastructure, Strategy, and Charter Template

According to the Nielsen survey, Americans today are spending nearly a quarter of their online time posting comments, pictures and video on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, making it the most popular online activity among Americans.

Online gaming is the second most popular online activity, accounting for 10% of online use, while e-mail ranks third at 8.3%. In a survey completed in June, 2009, e-mail was the second most popular online activity, accounting for 11.5% of Inernet activity.

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Workforce mobility a productivity issue for CIOs

Part of the  CIO's job is to support maximum productivity by choosing appropriate infrastructure for laptops and other devices to meet the individualized needs of IT Infrastructure, Strategy, and Charter Templatemobile employees. But IT leaders also must support the mobile infrastructure in a way that is designed to minimize costs, simplify administration efforts, protect against mobile-specific threats, and ensure security. Key enablers of the mobile workforce include the following:

  • Outstanding security and network accessibility
  • Simple, intuitive systems and data management tools
  • A streamlined process for backing up critical data
  • Smooth transitions when changing hardware or software
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Good metrics improve performance

When valid metrics are used, performance improves.  Janco has found that these six rules need to be followed.

  1. Select metrics that relate directly to the factor that you want performance improved on
  2. Have at least four but not more than six metrics that are focused on a particular performance factor
  3. Set minimums and maximum values for each metric before you start
  4. Base metrics on at least two months of trend data
  5. Have metrics that are both leading and lagging indicators
  6. Set targets where actions will be taken when those thresholds are crossed
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Service-Oriented Architecture and IT Service Management Are Keys To Success in the Recovery

SOA and ITSM drive success and productivity

One bad customer experience can cost you that customer for life. Hospitality, travel, retail, healthcare, and financial services are especially prone to losing customers who have a negative experience. It does not take much for a customer to decide that you and your company are not worth his time, effort, or money.

  

Customers like to feel loved, and they are turned off very quickly when they sense that you do not care about the pain they are feeling. Even if you cannot help them because the situation is beyond your control, acknowledge that you understand both the situation and their frustration.

 No customer wants the person serving her to be distracted or preoccupied. Ever go to the local mall and try to get help from a teenager focused more on texting her friends than helping you find what you’re looking for? On the other hand, being too focused can be a bad thing. Have you ever asked an innocent question out of curiosity and then found yourself stuck for an eternity while a customer support person hunts endlessly for an answer? This person is likely so focused on getting the answer that he does not realize that you really do not care that much about it and would rather not wait for an answer to an inessential question. Be sure your people understand the degree of focus required for the job.

Even if the employee has the right skill set and experience, his odds of being successful and remaining on the job are low if his core behaviors and tendencies do not line up with those needed for success in that particular role. This is especially true for customer-facing roles in which your frontline employees act as extensions of your brand and heavily influence the customer experience.  

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IT Service Management drives customer satisfaction

IT Service Management

Industry estimates peg the costs of acquiring new customers as being about five times more than the costs incurred to satisfy existing customers. IT Service Management and change control are keys to this process.

Customer retention and satisfaction also drive profits. According to some experts*, a 2 percent increase in customer retention can have the same effect on profits as cutting costs by 10 percent. And a 5 percent reduction in customer defection rate can increase profits by up to 25 to 125 percent, depending on the industry.

Additionally, existing customers are the ones who are most likely to be future purchasers. They’ve already shown they want and like your products or services and are willing to pay for them. And in many cases, customer profitability tends to increase over the life of a retained customer.

So what’s the key to retaining customers? Keeping customers happy has always been a cornerstone of good business practice. But with today's economic conditions, delivering good service to ensure satisfaction has become critical to any company’s success.

- more info